An interview takes place on an old black and white TV, with fuzzy sound:
Interviewer: Tell me about your brother.
Interviewee: He was a god. He liked gold foil.
My father had three brothers. One of these never married. While still a young man, he saved his money and bought an inexpensive piece of land on Lake Superior in an area that only loosely had road access. The four brothers cleared it and build a cottage, a log cabin which we called "the Camp." Their older sister and her husband acquired the property next door and built their summer residence (a second sister moved to California).
Over time, the area would become increasingly accessible and gentrified. My father, the last surviving brother, made several improvements and changes to the place. My brother, the last of us to live in the home town, owned it after our father died, until work promotions took him elsewhere.
The Camp turned up in three dreams in the last week. The third of these inspired a fourth.
The first is nonsensical, a funhouse mirror reflecting current events already redolent of a circus. I'm wading in the water near the Camp. I hear that my cousin, an engineer, will be stopping by to help with my minuscule social media presence. Instead, Donald Trump turns up, tie longer than usual. He's led by a man sporting an even longer tie. He wants to use my social media presence, now that he's been kicked off Twitter, to rebuild and maintain his movement. Between the offensiveness of the idea and its absurdity, my rational mind kicks in and then I wake up.
A night later:
E2 invades my dreams for the first time in a while. An enlarged version of the Camp is hosting a Nodermeet of the old variety, back when e2 drew crowds. I recognize Borgo among those attending, but most of the people I see are generic dream-creations. I do not encounter Andycyca, whom I might recognize from photos. My brain does not try to create some version of, say, Zephronias or RedOmega.
Present reality intrudes and I start to worry that our crowded gathering makes no concessions to COVID. We're not wearing appropriate PPE! A bizarre couple with leather faces insists that masks don't help, anyway.
I start to argue the point, which causes me to wake up.
Saturday morning's dream has me talking to my friend, Detroit at the Camp. He's been there, in reality, in years past. He's explaining that something horrific happened when he was a child, but I don't ever learn what, or whether it targeted him, or he merely observed it. We also discuss his brother. In the real world, his brother moved away decades ago. No one we know has heard from him since. He has a frequently-occurring name which would make him impossible to track online, assuming he's still alive and maintaining a social media presence. Or, for that matter, using his birth name.
I show Detroit a large fold-out memento of Eighth Grade graduation. It's not a real-world memento, but a product of my sleeping mind. In reality, my only mementos are the class photo and a few Polaroids of friends and classmates. Memories, of course: graduation, a joke by the principal that fell flat, a dance in the gym, a walk in the dark to a neighbourhood pizza joint.
The dream-folder features detached second heads pasted in various places around a group shot. I recall these faces. Most of the graduating girls wear blue dresses, although my real-world photo indicates that only some did. However, in my dream, someone explains that one girl, a Queen Bee of sorts though not a Mean Girl, wore blue, and the word spread that blue was the colour. However, she's not wearing blue in the real-life photo, so that clearly didn't happen. I recall a local author, who said that, in her experience, early onset of puberty influences Middle School female pecking order, so that, in her words, "the first bitch with breasts rules the roost." That strikes me as overstated, but the dream did lead me to recall that one classmate, specifically. I last spoke to her in the early 2000s, when I was visiting my home town and we ran into each other at a local event. After waking Saturday and checking my messages over coffee, I googled her sufficiently distinctive name.
Two of her siblings have passed away, one of them just last year. Her older sister had advanced warning of her impending death, and composed a heartfelt farewell to those close to her. It is posted online.
Requiescat in pace.
Sunday morning, today, I have a dream where I am in my twenties and driving through an unknown town. I turn into the parking lot of a plaza. Some girls, standing at the entrance, are handing out flyers and selling newspapers. I buy an Unknown Town Daily. A wealthy man has made an offer. He will die at a predetermined time, later that day. If anyone can establish how and why this will happen, they will inherit a fortune. Good premise for a story, if a little derivative of Murder by Death.
I head for an exposition of some sort, where the Sorta Queen in Not-Blue runs a booth. She has a book from the future. It contains enough information to solve the doomed wealthy man's challenge, and she thinks I have a better chance of succeeding than she does. She'll give me the book if I promise to share the winnings.
However, I'm being pursued by a rival, a hipster colleague of mine from some years ago. He's assisted by a girlfriend who initially seems to be his second wife, but who later becomes an entirely different person. I recall several twists and turns. We encounter others who seem sure they have the solution, all obvious suggestions, like positing that he's going to commit suicide. The book from the future indicates these solutions are incorrect. At one point, Hipster Colleague steals the book. However, a mysterious blonde woman steals it back and we begin working together. When I get close to her, I see she has three rows of teeth, one behind another. How would that even work? She shouldn't be able to close her mouth without biting her tongue, but she seems to function just fine.
We find the solution. Will we be the first to report it?
As I awake, an inexplicable TV clip fades out in my head. "Tell me about your brother," asks the interviewer.